In having just completed the eight part study of the prophetic time era prophecy of each of the Seven Churches of Revelation, as sort of an appendix article added to the end of this series, it is interesting to now observe and note that the Seven Churches of Revelation in chapters 2 & 3 are also a prophecy of Earth’s Dispensations. Not only do they address the concerns of certain local and historic communities and present a prophetic overview of the Church Age, they also seem to allude to the entire history of mankind as well. Sir Robert Anderson, in his book The Lord From Heaven, compares these seven letters to man’s struggle for redemption. Note Mr. Anderson’s observation of the historical chronology apparent in the imagery of the letters:
“In Ephesus, the ‘overcomer’ shares with unfallen Adam the right to ‘the tree of life which is in the paradise of God.’ In Smyrna, he shares with Noah immunity from ‘the second death’ – the judgment which brought the … ‘dispensation’ to a close. In Pergamos, he partakes with Moses of the hidden manna; and in Thyatira he exercises kingly rule with David. And Sardis speaks of the fellowship of the prophets and the reward for those who witness a good confession in days of apostasy.
“In Philadelphia, therefore, the ‘overcomer’ is called to share in the heavenly realities of which the temple that was the place of earthly worship, and the city, which was the center of earthly blessing, were but shadows. In Laodicea, which represents the ‘dispensation’ now drawing to a close, there is no reference to the past of Jewish symbolism or terminology; and the ‘overcomer’ is a follower of him who, as ‘the faithful and true Witness,’ has reached the throne by the path which led him to the cross.”
These seven epistles begin with Adam and “the tree of life” as seen in the letter to Ephesus; Smyrna takes us to Noah and the destructive power of the Flood event; Pergamos alludes to Moses and the manna in the wilderness; Thyatira engenders visions of David’s reign; Sardis touches upon the age of the prophets; and Philadelphia refers to the Jerusalem Temple; but Laodicea contains no reference to Judaism at all. The chronology, beginning with Ephesus, denotes the spiritual descent from the days of Adam and Noah, through the history of the Jews, to the failure of Gentile Christianity as seen in Laodicea.
The Dispensations
There are those today in Christian circles who scoff at the concept that the history of the world on up through it’s present and future are laid out in biblical dispensations. It’s almost become a dirty word or concept among some I have noticed. But as I have noted in the last article, some, if not most, look at the Bible in a two-dimensional view. In other words, if the Bible doesn’t specifically say it, it isn’t there. But as has been proven over and over again by many authors too numerous to count, God has hidden gems of prophetic revelation just beneath the surface of the text that is either implied or strongly implied that he would have us search out and discover with the leading and whisperings of the Holy Spirit. When the light of the Holy Spirit is shed upon the scripture with his enlightening of the human mind and spirit, layers unfold. One might call this the three-dimensional structure of the Bible.
If one peaks just below the surface, one can see that each of the seven letters to the seven churches mentioned in John’s divinely given prophecy corresponds with the seven successive dispensations of human history. At this point, it would become necessary to define what exactly a dispensation is. Simply put, it’s a system of order, government or organization of a community or nation especially as existing at a particular time. It is God’s ordained “way of doing things” in his dealings with the functioning of man and his purpose in the Earth. We also see that each dispensation has a particular purpose in the overall panorama of the picture. In the case of God’s dealing with or governing humankind throughout history, we can look in the Bible and see that there are a total of seven dispensations including the current one in which we live, and the future one that has yet to come. In the list below, the seven dispensations of human history are listed along with the Church letters they respectively correspond with in the sequence of order in time:
- Ephesus corresponds to the “Dispensation of Innocence.”
- Smyrna corresponds to the “Dispensation of Conscience.”
- Pergamos corresponds to the “Dispensation of human government.”
- Thyatira corresponds to the “Dispensation of human promise.”
- Sardis corresponds to the “Dispensation of law.”
- Philadelphia corresponds to the “Dispensation of grace” (current dispensation).
- Laodicea corresponds to the “Dispensation of the millennial reign of Christ on Earth (future and the next dispensation to come).
These churches are introduced by Christ as a “mystery” in the concluding verse of the first chapter. Truly, they present a many-tiered mystery. First, they represent seven actual churches in ancient Asia-Minor. On another level, they demonstrate seven types or levels of spirituality. On still another level, they display seven prophetic periods of church history, from it’s inception to it’s final apostasy. But amazingly, they also show the pattern of seven dispensations. That is, the economy and operational environment of each church is different, and each is unique.
The first of the seven is Ephesus, the apostolic church. This is the church that spread from Jerusalem to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire and beyond. It has it’s flaws, chiefly that it is departing from it’s first work. But it is filled with zeal and fresh enthusiasm that roughly corresponds to the quality of “Innocence,” the very first dispensation of history – the Dispensation of Innocence. In the Bible,this dispensation covers the time from the creation of man to the fall of man (Genesis 1:28-30) and Genesis 2:15-17). All living things that God had created lived at peace with themselves and with each other, and the world was without sin or death. Man was given the command to procreate, rule the earth and the animals, and take care of the garden. Man was given one command to obey: not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve and Adam disobeyed this rule, and were expelled from the garden as punishment, ending the dispensation of innocence.
The second church is Smyrna, the church that is turning away from Apostolic zeal to worldly, pagan practices. The weight of persecution, coupled with philosophical doctrine, slowly turns it into the church of Alexandria and Byzantium, as it’s diluted doctrines prepare it for incorporation into the system of the world. Living by ‘conscience,” it falls away. When God expelled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, the dispensation of conscience began. It was clearly a time when man was left to rule himself by his own will and conscience, both of which had been tainted by sin. As we all know from a quick look at this history, it turned out to be an unmitigated disaster and it ended in disaster in the form of the worldwide flood – called Noah’s flood of Genesis 3:8-22. During this particular time period, or dispensation, man became so corrupted and wicked that the Bible records that “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Many scholars have discovered through deep study that man’s very genetics became corrupted by the bloodline of the fallen angels by mating with human women and producing giant, evil offspring called Nephilim (Genesis 6:1-4). It is at this point in time that God chose to end humanity with a world wide flood and begin again with Noah and his family (Genesis 6:11-18).
Thus, we see the correlation between the second church of Revelation and the second dispensation of history.
The third church is Pergamos. The name is quite appropriate; it comes from the word root that designates bigamy. It is the church that has married into the world. Pergamos, with it’s throne of Zeus (representing Satan), represents the foundation of the church of the Holy Roman Empire. When in A.D. 312, Constantine brought the church into the Roman Empire, he made it a part of “Human Government,” the next and third dispensation of history called the “Dispensation of Human Government.” With a good look at human history, you will see that the dispensation of human government began immediately after the flood of Noah. We see in scripture that God made certain promises and gave certain commands to Noah and his family. God promised not to curse the earth again, and never to destroy it with a flood again. One of the commands that God gave to Noah and his sons was to repopulate and scatter across the earth. The method that God gave them for food apprehension was through animals. We also see that God established the law of capital punishment (Genesis 8:1-9;7). Interestingly, we see that Noah’s descendants failed to “fill the earth” as was commanded, and instead they worked together to build the tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9). God countered this action by confusing their languages, creating different nations and cultures that later spread to different areas. This was the beginning of human government.
The correlation between the third church of Revelation and the third dispensation is quite clear here as to be beyond reproach.
The fourth church – Thyatira – is representative of the period from Augustine to the Reformation. This period is marked by a thousand years of darkness. It was a time when grace was bought and sold in a feudal system of indulgences that kept the peasantry permanently impoverished, both physically and spiritually. It is the church of idolatry and oppression. Out of this morass, the believer is called to the “Promise” of the Lord’s coming. The fourth dispensation, the dispensation of human government, lasted until the call of Abraham. The call of Abraham, the lives of the patriarchs, and the enslavement of the Jewish people to Egypt all fall under the Dispensation of Promise. This was the time when Abraham’s descendants waited for the promise that was given to Abraham: that God would make Abraham’s descendants a great nation and give them their own land (Genesis 12:1-7). This dispensation ended with the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt. Once they left Egypt they were officially a nation, led by God into the wilderness toward the Promised Land. Thus, this fourth letter of Revelation corresponds to the fourth dispensation called “The Dispensation of Promise.”
On a side note, it is very interesting to me that after the rapture of the church occurs in our near future and the Tribulation period occurs for seven years and then comes to an end, we will then enter one thousand years of Christ’s rule on Earth. The book of John records an interesting statement made by Jesus, “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” From the time of Augustine to the reformation is one thousand years representing darkness, but when the “light of the world” returns, we shall have one thousand years of light and knowledge of God as he will be dwelling among us who belong to him. But even more specifically, it will be one thousand years of light dwelling among those who are still in their fleshly mortal and fallen bodies, a stark parallel of the dispensation of promise during the time of Augustine to the Reformation.
The fifth church is Sardis, the dead church. It represents the period near the end of the previous Dark Ages from the fourth church age, when the myriad legalisms of the Holy Roman Empire kept it’s downtrodden supplicants under the burden of permanent “Law,” thus corresponding to the fifth dispensation called the “Dispensation of Law.” The Dispensation of Law lasted almost 1,500 years. It began with the Exodus and ended with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The delivery of the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Law, found in Exodus 19-23, outlined the standard of perfection that God required from His people, and included the instructions about temple worship and sacrifices. This was the age of priests, prophets and kings, both good and evil. The people of Yahweh repeatedly broke His commands, and wandered off after other gods. It is important to note that strict following of commandments was never as important to God as mercy and faithfulness (Hosea 6:6). The Law was given to show the people that they needed to trust on him to save them rather than trusting themselves, their own goodness, or other gods for salvation. This may come as a shock to the modern church, but God never expected perfection. If He did, the sacrificial system would never have been implemented for man to acknowledge the fact that the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin. It was all symbolism looking forward to the One whose blood could take away sin according to (Hebrews 9:11-14; (Hebrews 10:3-10).
As we can plainly see, the fifth church representing deadness corresponds with the fifth dispensation of law, representing the inadequacy of “dead works” under the law to satisfy God’s requirement of holiness. What a perfect correlation we see here.
The sixth church period of time is Philadelphia. It is the current time in which we currently live. It is important to note at this point that the Philadelphian period of time and the seventh church of Revelation, the church of Laodicea period of time, overlap with each other and exist along the same timeline toward the end, which is currently our present time. These two churches are shown to grow together. The church of Philadelphia reveals that the dark clouds lift as revival comes to awaken the Church to doctrines that were long dead. It was in this period of time (the days of Darby and his followers) that apostolic teaching was restored and the promise of resurrection and rapture was recalled …
“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Revelation 3:10).
The literal interpretation of scripture, missionary and evangelistic activity blossomed. Under these conditions, the “gospel of grace” exploded. It is by “grace” through faith in Jesus Christ that every man and woman is saved from eternal damnation in the afterlife:
“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
This is the church age that is marked by grace. That said, let’s now look at the “Dispensation of Grace” that started at the resurrection of Jesus Christ and continues today. It is the New Covenant in Christ’s blood (Luke 22:20). This is also called the “Age of Grace” or the “Church Age.” in which every living man and woman can only be saved by grace. On a side note, most people who have an inkling of Bible prophecy knowledge realize that this entire dispensation (Dispensation of Grace) that carries on for more than two-thousand years occurs between the 69th and 70th weeks of Daniel’s prophecy in Daniel 9:24. During this dispensation, the Bible reveals that the Holy Spirit (the third member of the Godhead), indwells believers (John 14:16-26). The Church Age will end with the rapture of the Church (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 3:10) and then the tribulation occurs. This will be the seven years when those who dwell on the earth will experience God’s judgment, will begin (Daniel 12:1-4; Matthew 24:21-27). The exact timing of the rapture is a subject of great debate, but dispensationalists believe it will happen at the beginning of the seven years. We do know that some people will be saved during the tribulation (Revelation 7:14-17) and that it will end with the battle of Armageddon, when Jesus Christ will return and defeat Satan and any who would follow him into battle (Revelation 19:11-20;3).
As we can see as previously mentioned, the sixth church age of Philadelphia is the age marked by grace. By “grace,” it continues to this day. Thus, the sixth church, the “Church of Philadelphia,” corresponds with the message of grace revealed in the sixth dispensation of time called the “Dispensation of Grace.”
The seventh and final church is Laodicea. It is the liberal church that has become enriched and firmly connected to the world system. It has lost it’s spiritual insight. It sees itself as bringing the Kingdom of God to planet Earth. It identifies itself with the earthly “Kingdom” period. The defining characteristic for most folks of this current church age of Laodicea is one of faith failure.
That said, let’s look at the seventh dispensation called the “Dispensation of the Millennial Reign.” This approaching final dispensation will see Christ’s rule on Earth after the defeat of Satan. This event will be the fulfillment of many prophecies seen throughout the Bible that declare Christ will return and be King. Just as the Laodicean church sees it’s own “kingdom” and idea of world kingdom of man reigning on Earth, we see the promise of Christ’s “Kingdom rule” on Earth during the Dispensation of the Millennial Reign. One may call this observation the “Correlation of the Kingdoms” in this particular prophetic timeline.
This is yet another way of observing the themes contained in the seven letters. Each view is important. Christ has a message for the saints of all ages. There is a message designed to be ascertained by either Jew or Gentile, depending upon one’s perspective. The Jew can see a personal history in each letter, while the Gentile believer can draw upon it’s clear and prophetic significance for Christianity.
But amazingly, one can clearly see the divinely placed correlation or outline of the history of the Christian Church with the history of the dispensational time periods of rule on the Earth. The next question that I would ask for the sake of shedding some new light on the debate of whether or not the Seven Churches of Revelation 2 & 3 truly do demonstrate seven prophecies of time ages for the church itself is this … If they demonstrate it’s very evident prophecies of the seven ages or dispensations of Earth’s history as clearly shown, then why would we dare think that it is not possible, or likely, that these seven churches are not prophecies that foretell of the seven ages of church history right on up to the present?
I believe that the evidence of history leaves no doubt and shows conclusive proof in and of itself as already shown in the previous series of articles on these seven churches, but demonstrating their prophetic narrative for Earth’s history, in my opinion, really puts a crowning picture of verification on the debate that these seven churches are indeed prophecies of seven historical time ages of the church up to the present. It is only the hand of God that could have coordinated this amazing pattern that we see playing out in prophecy.
Question and comments can be left in the comment section below (sometimes comments end up in my spam box – will approve them as soon as I check it every day).
END TIMES: DARKNESS DESCENDING 
Leave a Reply